Hang on for a minute...we're trying to find some more stories you might like.

Email This Story

Send email to this addressEnter Your NameAdd a comment hereVerification

Ambulance sirens ring out while five students are pulled out of the wreckage of a fatal car crash. Three are dead, one is paralyzed and the other is alive, but being put in handcuffs. Four of them were intoxicated at the time.

Luckily this is part of the school Shattered Dreams program that tries to show effects of drunk driving to discourage students from it.

“The best part was learning so much about underage and drinking and mainly drunk driving,” senior Ian Milne said. “I thought I knew a lot before Shattered Dreams, but a lot of what I thought was wrong. It was really moving and eye opening seeing how one decision and one person can affect so many lives.”

Student council teamed up with the local emergency services as well as other students helped to recreate a video capturing the story of five students, Milne, senior Alyse Balderrama, senior Ashley Horn, junior Camryn Schaecherr and senior Elizabeth Shelton and their lives before and after a car crash involving drunk driving. Guest speakers from EMS and someone who had been involved in a drinking and driving accident also talked to all grade levels about the dangers with driving under the influence.

“It was really eye opening to be a living dead and not be able to talk to anyone all day, it definitely impacted myself and those I normally spend my day with,” junior Jordyn Farrar said. “It also really showed me how the effects of drunk driving can really impact your family, because I had to read letters from my parents as if I had been killed in an accident involving a drunk driver.”

“

The person that you kill meant the world to someone and it’s not right to take that away.”

— Alyse Balderrama

According to Intoxalock, in 2014 one person was killed due to drunk driving every 53 minutes on average, in 2012 it was reported that every day 300,000 people drive drunk but only 4,000 are arrested and in 2014 28 people died a day on average because of drunk driving. The goal of the Shattered Dreams program and performances are to decrease the probability that teens will decide to drink and drive.

“[Shattered Dreams] has made me realize how drunk driving affects people other than the people involved in the accidents,” Balderrama said. “It involves every single family member of the victim and all the people that it hurts. Everyone who is killed in a drunk driving accident is someone’s daughter, best friend, father, etc. It’s better to leave your car somewhere or even call your parents and risk getting in trouble. It’s better to get in trouble or ask for help than to risk life and death. The person that you kill meant the world to someone and it’s not right to take that away.”